The Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network is excited to release the newly developed smoke ready communities graphics and companion materials!
These graphics were developed in the spring of 2025 in collaboration with the Washington Fire Adapted Communities Network, Liz Walker, PhD, and a number of partners in the public health, air quality, and wildfire fields. They were developed over a series of listening sessions and verbal and written feedback.
Modeled off of the Fire Adapted Communities framework graphic, the “smoke ready communities” graphic and “who to engage” graphic build off work by practitioners in this field and help to outline core components of the work and partnerships that contribute to smoke readiness in communities. Wildfire smoke is a public health hazard, and while wildfire plays an important role in our landscape, its smoke can still impact communities (especially those most sensitive to smoke such as the elderly, children, or those with asthma).
As with the FAC graphic, this graphic is not intended to be fully comprehensive, a road map, or a to-do list. It is intended to be a framework to help you engage your community and partners in discussions about what smoke preparedness might look like in your community. In attempting to group certain actions or programs, there might be some overlap, and in some communities not every component of the graphic would be feasible to implement.
Along with the two graphics, we completed two additional companion materials. The first is a facilitation guide on using the graphics, which includes some ideas for activities you can do with partners.
The second resource is a hand out that features three community case studies. Each community shares their story and includes information about their partnership, projects, and funding. This resource is there to help share ideas about what this work can look like in practice.
We know that this is just a scratch at the surface of the rich research, information and lived-experiences of managing and preparing for wildfire smoke impacts, however, we hope that this new graphic can be a good starting point for engaging your community and partners. As we continue to synthesize and collect additional stories, tools and input, we plan to continue building out this toolkit with additional resources and updates.
If you have feedback on the graphics, companion materials, or new ideas for us to include in future resources, please feel free to submit input here.
Additional Resources, Tools and Websites:
- Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program website
- EPA’s Smoke-Ready Toolbox
- AirNow Fire and Smoke Map
- Wildfire Smoke: A Guide for Public Health Officials
- EPA’s webpage on protecting your family from smoke
- Smokewise Ashland’s business preparedness webpage
- Center for Wildfire Smoke Research & Practice website
Acknowledgments:
We want to thank Liz Walker, PhD, for her contribution and leadership in this project as well as the numerous contributing participants in our listening sessions. A special thank you to all of our listening session participants not listed here for their verbal and written edits and ideas, and we would like to include a big thank you to the following: Priscilla Abercrombie (COPE Northern Sonoma County), Sophia Fox and Reese Lolley (Washington Resource, Conservation, and Development Council), Sara Jones (Ashland Fire & Rescue, City of Ashland), Dr. Amber Ortega (USFS Rocky Mountain Regional Office), Jess Downey and Heidi Huber-Stearns (Center for Wildfire Smoke Research and Practice at the University of Oregon).
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